Systems and methods herein generally relate to printing devices, and more particularly to charge blades within electrostatic printing devices.
Electrostatic printing devices deliver a controlled amount of charged marking material (e.g., toner) to a photoreceptor (or other element capable of maintaining a latent image charge) using what is sometimes referred to as a development roll. The marking material is transferred from the development roll to the photoreceptor, and then from the photoreceptor to a sheet of media to perform printing on the sheet.
The marking material is usually in the form of a powder, such as toner particles. In order to control (or “meter”) the amount of marking material that exists on the development roll, a blade is used to scrape excess amounts of marking material off the development roll. In addition, the blade can provide a charge to the marking material particles and, therefore, the blade is sometimes referred to as a “charge blade.”